Commenter Policy

The Wild operates a no dickheads policy for comments. This means no abuse, no swearing, no attacking other commenters. If you are a dickhead we do not want you and you will be banned.

Write in Proper English or Maori

No comments will be approved if they are incoherent or written in text language or English that can’t be read. Use correct spelling and sentence structure.

Maori Welcome

You are more than welcome to comment in Te Reo, just bear in mind that very few people will be able to read it. No abusive Te Reo though, the same no dickheads rules apply as for commenting in English.

Comment as if everyone knows who you are

Dickhead commenters who hide behind their anonymity will be outed as well as banned. If you wouldn’t say what you are saying to the face of the person you are commenting to you are a coward and we don’t want you commenting, but before we ban you we will let all the readers know exactly who you are.

1080

Read the Wild’s 1080 policy before ranting about 1080. If you want to rage about 1080 feel free to do it somewhere else because you will be banned if you go on a crusade on our web site.

Respectful questions about 1080 drop locations so you can plan hunting trips are go, but no dickhead comments or you will be banned.

1080 Policy

The Wild takes an agnostic view on 1080 and this site is not going to be a forum for either promoting or opposing 1080.

This is because over many years all sorts of people have bailed up Simon & Cam and told them they have to campaign against 1080. They always expect us to run their campaigns for nothing, and refuse to either pay us or take sensible advice on how to run proper campaigns.

If you don’t like this policy either pay us or go to someone else’s site and whinge there.

Feral Cats

Feral Cats are a menace that needs to be destroyed. We advocate killing feral cats wherever possible and are promoting Gareth Morgan’s sensible policy on cats with the Morgan Score.

If you can not deal with a web site that hates wild cats and the hypocrisy of those who refuse to acknowledge the damage they do please feel free to not read our site.

Specific Commenting Policy Details

At the risk of appearing pedantic, but for the sake of preciseness, here are the rules The Wild applies when moderating comments:

Stick to the topic, except for any “general debate” type posts

Don’t tell lies

Keep the language clean. Also no masking and abbreviating (FFS, 5#1T,C..T,B I T C H, etc). If you are seen to be deliberately getting around bad language blocks, you risk being banned.

No promotion without prior approval, especially self promotion

Keep it legal, or you will be made a co-defendant in any legal action

“Don’t be a dick” (means: no trolling, no “me too”, “first” or other zero-calorie content) – See above – No Dickheads

The “get a life” rule: If you are regularly responsible for more than 1/3rd of the comments on an article, or you regularly comment on more than 2/3rd of the articles most days a week, then you need to get a life and allow others’ voices a chance to shine through

No inflammatory language (this is where you pansy .243 wankers have got it all wrong, etc)

Being critical of, drawing attention to, or ridiculing another’s spelling or grammar is off topic, disruptive, embarrassing to the person you’re white-anting and not allowed

No repetitive comments or repeating of exact comments, especially between articles

Any concerns about moderation are to be expressed via email

In general, try to use the proper words to describe things. Abusive or silly nicknames about people or products become tiring to read and detract from the argument. If you do it a lot, you risk being banned.

If you edit a comment for more than spelling, punctuation or grammar, thus adding, removing or changing the content so it means something else, you must indicate this somehow as part of your edit. Not doing so may cause your access to commenting to be withdrawn. If you ONLY correct the spelling or grammar, please do not say so.

Anyone who publicly discusses that they have blocked/muted someone using the Disqus block feature will lose their ability to comment. Blocking/Muting is a private decision. To make your decision public will cause friction and risks your own ability to contribute.

Deliberately offensive aliases and/or avatar images may see your account blocked from commenting. Do not change your avatar to champion a cause. Previous examples included, and anti-1080 or product endorsing avatars. These are seen as “gang patches” that follow you around in all the topics, and are therefore disruptive.

Take care with photos. No nudity, be extremely careful if the photo contains children, no mutilation, corpses, sex or porn (simulated or not), wounds, anything deliberately rude or offensive captions, etc.

Do not threaten to kill, harm or otherwise injure anyone, even in jest. Don’t think that you can get away with clever language like “I propose a lead injection”, or similar.

If you see someone else troll DO NOT REPLY. If you reply, you risk being seen as part of the problem (no, we don’t care “who started it”).

Do not copy whole articles into comments. Comments are for YOUR views. Post a link, perhaps a snippet, and it better have something that you want to write about it as well. Just content from somewhere else will be deleted.

Do not tell others about your comments (or trolling) on other sites. Do not copy your comments from other sites here (even if that site refused to publish). Do not cause vigilante feelings or action against another site. Do not bring your fights on other sites here. Do not copy/paste comments from other sites here. SUMMARY: Nothing to cause ill-feeling towards us or towards them is to be used in our comments. Do not leverage our site for your own private wars.

Do not address personal comments to Cameron Slater or Simon Lusk other blog staff – use email

Just because certain language may be part of a headline or article doesn’t clear it for use in the comments

If in doubt, leave it out

Knowingly breaking the rules can result in an instant and irrevocable, ban.

Moderation isn’t “fair” and it may not be balanced. It is performed by a number of people, so there will be variances. These people will also have better days and average days. Any attempt to generate public debate on moderation will be deemed off-topic.

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